Sunday, March 31, 2013

Today is Sunday, so that means that it’s time for my weekly breakdown of this week’s Publishers Weekly Best-Sellers Lists. According to those lists, there are two new books at the top of the four major best-sellers lists this week.

"Six Years" by Harlan Coben replaced "Alex Cross, Run" by James Patterson as the No. 1 book on the hardcover fiction best-sellers list.

"The Lost Years" by Mary Higgins Clark replaced "The Innocent" by David Baldacci as the top book on the mass market paperback best-sellers list.

"Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg remained the top book on the hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list for the second week in a row.

"Proof of Heaven" by Eben Alexander remained the No. 1 book on the trade paperbacks best-sellers list for the 17th week in a row.

There were two books on this week’s hardcover fiction best-sellers list that weren’t on that list lat week. They (and their places on the list) included "Six Years" by Harlan Coben (1) and "Halo: Silentium" by Greg Bear (1).

There were five books on this week’s hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list that weren’t on the list last week. They included "Patients Come Second" by Paul Spiegelman, Britt Barrett (4), "Firsthand" by Ryan and Josh Shook (5), "The Virgin Diet" by J.J. Virgin (13), "Daring Greatly" Brene Brown (14) and "No Easy Day" by Mark Owen (15).

There were five books on this week’s mass market paperbacks best-sellers list that weren’t on the list last week. They included "The Lost Years" by Mary Higgins Clark (1), "Now You See Her" by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (2), "Sleep No More" by Iris Johansen (4), "Highlander Most Wanted" by Maya Banks (11) and "The Host (Movie tie-in) by Stephenie Meyer (15).

There were two books on this week’s trade paperbacks best-sellers list that weren’t on the list last week. They included "Summerland" by Elin Hilderbrand (11) and "Obamacare Survival Guide" by Nick J. Tate (15).

As a reminder, I’m posting these lists each Sunday because they, as a whole, represent a great, contemporary recommended reading list. These lists are initially released each week on Thursday, and if you’re interested in reading them then, visit Publishers Weekly’s Web site at www.publishersweekly.com. Below you’ll find all four of this week’s best-seller lists.

Saturday, March 30, 2013

From the Grady Gaston File this week, I give you “Part I” of a statement Gaston made in 1943 about his ordeal in the Australian jungle during World War II.

For those of you unfamiliar with Gaston, a native of Frisco City, Ala. who died in 1998, he endured an epic struggle for survival after a military plane crash in the Australian wilderness during WWII. In the early days of the war, Gaston served as the radio operator aboard the “Little Eva,” a B-24 Liberator bomber that was based out of a remote airbase in Queensland, Australia. On Dec. 2, 1942, while on their way back from their first mission, their plane was disabled during a severe thunderstorm.

As the plane began to run out of fuel, Gaston and other members of the crew parachuted from the plane moments before it crashed in a remote area of the Australian wilderness. Up to that point, Gaston had never parachuted out of anything, much less a moving plane hundreds of feet off the ground, but miraculously he survived the jump. Others weren’t so lucky.

Once on the ground, Gaston found himself in a group of four, who began making their way west toward the coast. Over time, the men slowly began to starve to death and eventually only Gaston was left alive. An extensive search was launched for the plane and the crew, but Gaston wasn’t found until April 23, 1943 when an Aborigine found him walking on the beach. Barely alive, Gaston had survived 141 days in a wilderness that would have killed experienced bushmen and Aborigines in similar circumstances.

Gaston’s ability to survive was mostly due to the fact that he was willing to eat things that his companions would not. With no way to start a fire, he ate whatever he could catch with his bare hands, including raw snakes, frogs, fish and sand crabs. He also fought off wild dogs, drank impure water and lost 70 pounds. He would later describe his experience, which led to him being featured in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!,” as “141 days of hell.”

Not long after his rescue, in May 1943, Gaston provided the military with an official statement of what happened to him and his colleagues in the Australian jungle, and tonight I provide you with the first portion of that official statement. As you read the statement below, try to put yourself in Gaston’s place and think about what you would have done had you been in his position.

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It was about nine o’clock in the evening, Dec. 1, 1942, after having completed a bombing mission somewhere in the Southwest Pacific that we were returning to our home base in a B-24 Liberator when we ran into a terrific storm. Shortly after entering the storm our radio and many other instruments were rendered useless and but for the exceptional ability of our pilot, 1st Lt. Norman R. Grosson, Cincinnati, Ohio, we would probably have crashed long before we did. In trying to avoid the ferocity of the storm, Lt. Grosson tried to circle it but after that failed he then went to about 20,000 feet in order to try to fly over it.

All these maneuvers seemed to no avail when suddenly we were out of the storm but since our instruments were of no avail there was not much could be done except to come to a lower altitude and try to ascertain our position. After coming quite low we dropped our flares but could no determine our locality. During these tactics our gasoline was growing continually lower and finally when only about 300 gallons remained in our tanks, Lt. Grosson gave the order for everyone to put on their life vests and parachutes in preparation for a jump and at the same time he started to climb higher in order to gain enough altitude for everyone to have a chance to jump clear of the airplane.

At 9,000 feet the order was given and after looking around I felt sure that there were no other people in the airplane other than Lt. Grosson and myself at which time I jumped. At the time of jumping we did not know whether we were over land or water but upon landing with a considerable jolt I found that my parachute had caught in several trees and that I had landed in the center of the cluster. After resting for a few moments I climbed one of the trees from where I could see the airplane burning and could hear ammunition exploding.

Just about that time I heard someone calling “Hello” – “Hello,” after which I kept up an answer until Lt. Grimes, our bombardier, joined me. In the meantime, Lt. Speltz, our co-pilot, heard our voices and soon he joined us. Being about three o’clock in the morning of Dec. 4, we decided it would be of no use to try to locate the airplane, therefore, we used our parachutes as beds. We slept until sunrise, at which time we decided to try to find the coast.

After traveling for some time, we ran into Lt. Dyer, our bombardier, and after taking inventory, we found that he had the emergency rations from his parachute, and I had the emergency rations from mine, which amounted to four bars of chocolate candy, our jungle knife, one fish hook and line and a few matches in a waterproof container.

With four of us accounted for and together we walked the rest of that day and until about 10 o’clock the next morning before reaching the coast. We had not found any water until this time and finally when night fell we were in quite a bad condition for want of a drink. After settling for the night, Lt. Grimes finally found a stagnant water hole with alligators and other types of strange things swimming around in it, but we were so glad to see water that anything else did not matter.

After resting for the night, I cut the top part of my life vest off which enabled us to fill it with water. We then traveled on, but after about 1-1/2 days, we were again out of water.

We continued to follow the beach north to northwest during which time we sucked leaves and chewed on green bark in order to quench our thirst. We had two 4.5-calibre pistols with us and finally after trying several times on the fourth day we managed to kill a young bullock. We cut off as much meat as we could carry and after finding a suitable place we built a fire, cooking the meat on the end of sticks.

That was our first meal and, of course, we ate all that we could hold. By this time we were only thinking of lessening the weight we had to carry, therefore, we did not carry any meat with us, in fact, we discarded everything possible in order to lighten our load and after another day we had to throw away our pistols as they had rusted to a point where we could not use them. During our travel down the beach we ran into several rivers.

We tried to get around one or two of them, but they didn’t seem too narrow enough for us to walk across we decided to swim. They were all infested with alligators and crocodiles, but luckily we did not get hit by any of them. Many times we waded through mud and slush almost waist deep and at times had to crawl through the dense jungle growth.

We had been fishing every night and at times had quite a bit of luck, but soon we found ourselves with only one fishhook left. We were growing weaker all the time and after deciding to make camp for the night we threw out our fishing line, but this time and extra large fish took hold of it carrying away our last chance of fish for food. From then on we tried using one “Safety-pin-hook,” but had no luck as they would always get off before getting them out of the water.

After traveling for a considerable distance, we finally came upon a large fish, apparently a swordfish, lying on the beach. Lt. Dyer came upon it quietly and after jumping on his long bill, I took my jungle knife and killed him. We had only about two matches left, so we ate him raw, but at that stage anything tasted good to us.

During this time, we had found a few patches of “Passion fruit” and a few “cockerels,” but after a while we soon tired of them. They tasted good to us, but contained very little nourishment.

On Dec. 13, a flight of three B-24s came directly over us and after using everything possible of signals they went on their way without seeing us. They were about 1,000 feet high at the time, that was about the most discouraging moment we had, since we could see men looking out of the windows, yet they could not see our signals.

On Dec. 24, we sighted a small paper bark shack and at once made a dash for it, hoping we would find someone but to our dismay it was empty and had been for a long time. After looking around, we found a watermelon vine with a few small melons on it. That was our meal for the night. It being Christmas Eve, we gathered around singing carols and making our Christmas prayers.

It started raining that night and kept it up for several days, during which time, Lt. Speltz, whose feet were in such bad condition, decided that he would stay there while the rest of us tried to find our way out of the jungle. We started out but upon reaching the Robinson River, we found that it had risen so high from the heavy rains that it was impossible to swim across.

We then tore our shirts into strips and tied a few logs together for a makeshift raft. Holding to this we managed to get across the river. We soon spread out in the woods to hunt for food and after while Lt. Dyer called to me and told me to cross another river we had found. While waiting for Lt. Dyer, to come up, Lt. Grimes started to wade and swim across with all his clothes on.

When I reached shore I could see that he was in trouble, “just about to drown.” I went in after him but the current was so swift that when I got within about 20 yards I found that I was just about helpless and at that time, Lt. Dyer called for me to come back to shore where we just had to sit and watch Lt. Grimes be carried out to sea.

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To read the rest of Gaston’s statement, please visit this site next Saturday, when I will post the second portion of Gaston’s official statement about the “Little Eva” incident. If you don’t want to wait that long, you can read his entire statement at the following address, www.dropbears.com/a/aviation/docs/SgtGradyGaston-LittleEva.pdf. If you’re interested in more details about Gaston’s ordeal, I’d also encourage you to read “The Crash of Little Eva: The Ultimate World War II Survivor Story” by Barry Ralph, which was originally published in November 2004 by the University of Queensland Press in Australia.

In the end, how many of you remember Grady Gaston? Do you have any memories of Gaston that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.

Friday, March 29, 2013

It’s the fourth week of the month, so this week I’m giving you an update on UFO reports in Alabama from the previous month, courtesy of the Mutual UFO Network.

A search for UFO reports in Alabama between Feb. 1 and Feb. 28 on MUFON’s website, www.mufon.com, resulted in two reports from within our state during that time.

The first incident was reported on Thurs., Feb. 21, around 8 p.m. from a person in Irvington, which is in southwestern Mobile County, north of Bayou La Batre. The person making the report said that many residents and motorists in that part of the state had seen UFOs over Irvington during the previous week. On the morning of Feb. 21, 97.5 FM, a radio station in Mobile, discussed the incident, and witnesses offered up descriptions of the UFOs. Witnesses said that the strange objects were shaped like boomerangs and featured green, orange and white lights.

The second incident occurred on Wed., Feb. 27, around 4:30 a.m. in Calera, which is in both Chilton and Shelby counties. It’s also the home of the Shelby County Airport.

The witness, who described himself as an “astronomy buff,” said that he works the nightshift and saw something strange while taking a smoke break at around 4:30 a.m. At that time, he was looking up at the sky, in a West-Northwest direction, and saw a light. At first, he thought it was a star or planet, but the only planet visible at that time was Saturn, which was behind him in the night sky.

The witness dismissed the idea that the light was a planet or star when he noticed that it was moving. The light moved at a slow pace, and the witness thought that the light was an airplane. Then things began to get strange, the witness said.

Within 10 to 15 seconds of him thinking that it was an airplane, the light started to get smaller as if it were moving away from the witness. To him, it didn’t look like a plane flying away into the sky, but more like a craft rising up into space.

“It continued to get smaller until it just faded away,” the witness said. “This whole event took place in 25 to 30 seconds, from the time I noticed it until it disappeared.”

While on the subject of UFOs, I feel like I should say that the reports of UFO sightings in Conecuh County has died down in recent months. The Courant received a number of UFO reports from Conecuh County residents, starting in late November of last year. Those reports lasted a couple of weeks before they eventually died out. As of this writing, those reports remain unexplained.

Before closing out this week, I just want to put it out there again that I would be very interested to hear from any readers of The Courant who have witnessed a UFO in Conecuh County. I think a lot of other people would be interested in hearing your story too, and I’m willing to accept your report anonymously. You can contact me by e-mail at courantsports@earthlink.net or by phone at 578-1492.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Remember in last week’s paper when I said that Gonzaga was going to win the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament?

Scratch that.

Gonzaga was just one of a number of highly ranked teams that went down in flames during the first two rounds of the tournament last week. Gonzaga, a No. 1 seed, lost to No. 9 seed, Wichita State, on Saturday. Other upsets included a win by No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast over No. 2 seed Georgetown and a win by No. 14 seeded Harvard over No. 3 seed New Mexico. No. 13 seed La Salle also downed No. 4 seed, Kansas State.

These “bracket busting” games left the brackets filled out by fans across the country in disarray, but what else is new? This is “March Madness,” so while this sort of thing can’t be predicted, it is to be expected. There’s nothing we can do about the past, so us basketball fans are left with little choice but to pick up the pieces and forge on with the teams that remain as we enter the Sweet Sixteen round of the tourney.

With that said (and for what it’s worth), here’s how I see the rest of the tournament playing out. In games today (Thursday), I like Wichita State over La Salle, Ohio State over Arizona, Indiana over Syracuse and Miami over Marquette. In games tomorrow (Friday), I like Louisville over Oregon, Duke over Michigan State, Kansas over Michigan and Florida over Florida Gulf Coast.

In the Elite Eight round of the tourney, which will play out on Saturday and Sunday, I like Duke over Louisville, Ohio State over Wichita State, Kansas over Florida and Miami over Indiana.

That would set up Final Four round games on April 6 between Duke and Kansas and Ohio State and Miami. In that scenario, I’d go with Duke and Miami to win, setting up a NCAA title game between those two schools on April 8. If that comes to pass, I’d go with Duke to win it all.

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When will Paul Finebaum be back on the radio?

That’s a question that I’ve been getting on and off for several months now, and I’ll be just as happy as the next sports fan when he returns to the airwaves.

For those of you unfamiliar with Finebaum, he’s the host of a popular sports radio talk show that airs Monday through Friday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. His show is based out of Birmingham, but listeners in Conecuh County and in adjacent counties had the pleasure of listening to his entertaining program on WPPG 101.1FM in Evergreen.

Finebaum has been off the air since Jan. 22, and he’s currently serving out a three-month no compete clause that he had in his contract with Cumulous Radio. No one’s sure what will happen at the end of that three-month period, but rumor is that he might land on ESPN, XM Radio, CBS Sports Radio or on The Zone in Birmingham. Hopefully, he’ll return to the local airwaves shortly thereafter.

“The Alabama Sports Writers Association released its annual All-State Basketball Team on Sunday, and it came as no surprise that Sparta Academy sophomore April Palmer was named as a first-team member of the AISA’s all-state girls team.
“Palmer grabbed headlines back in January when she broke Sparta’s all-time single game girls scoring record with a 48-point performance Jan. 17 in a 72-53 win over Escambia Academy in Evergreen. Former Sparta and T.R. Miller basketball standout Andrea Ward set the previous school record with 47 points in a 70-61 overtime win over Escambia Academy at Canoe on Jan. 7, 1999.”

“Evergreen city officials presented local basketball star Chris Hines with a special proclamation and a key to the city during a special ceremony recently at city hall. Pictured from left at the presentation are Councilman Luther Upton, Mayor Pete Wolff, Hines and council members Vivian Fountain, Maxine Harris, Diane Skipper and John Skinner.”

“Two Conecuh County women were among a number of runners from Southwest Alabama who took part in the Azalea Trail Run Saturday in Mobile.
“Maxine Casey, 52, of Repton completed the 10-K (6.2-mile) race in 58:03, and Tressa Carter, 38, of Repton finished the race in 1:07:53. Wayne Caylor, 62, of Monroevivlle, who is a native of Evergreen, completed the race in 1:00:17.”

16 YEARS AGO
MARCH 27, 1997

“Gennifer Meeks was named to the Montgomery Advertiser Honorable Mention All-State Basketball Team last week. She was a key member of the Lady Jaguars basketball team this year. She is a junior and the daughter of Robert Earl Meeks and the late Gennetta Meeks.”

“David Gorum celebrated the opening of the spring turkey season by killing this gobbler Saturday. The Tom weighed 17-1/2 pounds, had a 7-3/4 inch beard and 3/4-inch spurs.”

“Gregg Baggett of Baggetts Chapel brought in this turkey Monday. It weighed 16-3/4 pounds, had a 10-inch beard and 3/4-inch spurs.”

“Long distance runner Tarak Kauff passed through Evergreen last Thursday morning on his 50-state solo run which began Jan. 31 in New York City. He is accompanied by his friend and handler, Sahisnu, and will cover over 9,000 miles and pass through every state in the union before he completes his record-setting run. Tarak says: ‘I love America deeply and this run expresses that love. For me, the run stands as a symbol of self-transcendence, and that’s why I’m dedicating it to the individual who has been my teacher, in everything, for the past 11 years, Sri Chinmoy.’ Tarak, who earns his living as a waiter, is financing the run through savings and assistance from family and friends.”

“On the husky young shoulders of these young men rest the hopes of Evergreen High School for a successful football season this Fall. These boys are now taking part in spring training under the direction of coaches Cliff Little and Perry Outlaw who have found their attitude very good. The spring drills will be climaxed with the Green and White intrasquad game on Wed., April 5.”

“Cub Scouts to hold pack meet tonight: The regular monthly meeting of Evergreen Cub Scout Pack 40 will be held tonight at seven o’clock at The Murphy Club. All Cubs are urged to be present and parents are cordially invited to attend.”

From “Front Page, Upper Left Corner” by Bob Bozeman - “The Evergreen Golf Club will hold its annual invitational tournament on Thurs., April 13. Brown Boykin, chairman, tells me that much interest is already being shown with some 40 entries already in, including some of the top golfers of the area.
“Tommy Boone, an outstanding high school golfer from Montgomery, will be here to defend his championship. Other recent winners who are expected to compete include (years won in parenthesis) Bob Prichard (1965); Bill McGehee (1963 and 1961); and Jim Ryan (1962, 1960, 1959). Richard Anthony, who won in 1964, is in college and unable to play.
“In addition to Bill McGehee, two other local golfers are playing well and should be considered threats. Hugh Ellington, the long-hitting radioman, and Bill Ivey, former Howard College (now Samford U.) ace, are both capable of copping the big prize.”

61 YEARS AGO
MARCH 27, 1952

“Aggies Wind Up Spring Training With Game Scheduled Wed. P.M.: Local football fans will get a show of next season’s Aggies when the squad divides up and plays the annual green and white game next Wednesday afternoon.
“Coach Hart has out the largest group ever to participate in spring practices at EHS and expects to unveil a lot of new talent while showing the fans a top-notch intrasquad game. The boys have been equally divided into two squads, and the game promises to be a closely matched, well played contest.
“The kick-off will be at 1:10 p.m. and a large crowd is expected to witness this preview of the 1952 Aggies.
“The Lineup: Green Team: ENDS, R. Peacock, R. Ansley, W. Lewis; TACKLES, S. Cope, L. Sheffield, S. Brown; GUARDS, B. Robinson, J. Ansley, R. Moody; CENTERS, S. Robison, W. Frazier; BACKS, P. Bozeman (C), H. Coburn, R. Edson, B. Lewis, W. Carrier.
“White Team: ENDS, C. Edson, L. Ward, R. White; TACKLES, W. Douglas, P. Hanks, G. Wilkerson; GUARDS, R. Taylor, D. Golson, E. Johnson, E. Middleton; CENTER, W. Bell; BACKS, S. Frazier (C), W. Alexander, J. Fussell, A. Reeves.”

“With the Fifth Infantry Regt. in Korea – Sgt. Gillis Jones after serving several months on the front lines in Korea has been transferred to an island 20 miles below Pusan. Gillis was a star athlete at Evergreen High School and graduated with the Class of 1948.”

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

This week’s featured historical marker is the “ERNEST STANLEY CRAWFORD, M.D.” marker in downtown Evergreen.

The marker is located just off the sidewalk on the east side of West Front Street across from the block of buildings that contain the local State Farm office and Joy’s gift shop. There’s printing on both sides of this marker, but the wording is identical on both sides. This marker was erected and dedicated on May 16, 1992 by the City of Evergreen and the Evergreen-Conecuh County Public Library’s Heritage Committee. What follows is the complete text from the marker:

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“In Honor of Native Son ERNEST STANLEY CRAFORD, M.D.: This pioneer surgeon, teacher and medical statesman was born May 12, 1922 in Evergreen. He worked at Conecuh Drug Company as a youngster and graduated from Evergreen High School (1940). His undergraduate degree was received from the University of Alabama (1943), his M.D. from Harvard Medical School (1946) and he completed his surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital (1954). An intense interest in the newly developing fields of open heart surgery and replacement of major blood vessels drew Dr. Crawford to Houston, Texas, where he worked for the next 37 years at Baylor College of Medicine, becoming full Professor of Surgery in July 1966. A master surgeon with tireless devotion to the education of young surgeons and to the betterment of mankind, Dr. Crawford became internationally renowned for surgical techniques he developed for the treatment of aneurismal disease of the aorta. He became a member of every major international vascular society, lectured in many countries and his textbook “Diseases of the Aorta” became a reference source in vascular surgery. Dr. Crawford profoundly influenced the field of surgery and the lives of many individuals throughout the world.”

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There are a few things about Crawford’s life that aren’t mentioned on the marker. Between 1947 and 1949, he served as an officer in the U.S. Navy at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Portsmouth, N.H. In regard to his famous book, “Diseases of the Aorta,” he was actually the book’s coauthor. His partner in writing that book was his son, Dr. John Lloyd Crawford II. Ernest Stanley Crawford, who died in 1992, was also the co-inventor of the Baylor Rapid Autologous Transfusion System, a machine that recycles a patient’s washed red blood cells during surgery.

This marker is also just a short distance away from a number of other historic markers in the downtown Evergreen area. Others markers in the area include the one in front of the former Alabama Baptist Children’s Home site, the marker in front of Evergreen Baptist Church and the marker at the Old L&N Depot that discusses the history of the City of Evergreen.

In the end, visit this site next Wednesday to learn about another local historical marker. I’m also taking suggestions from the reading audience, so if you know of an interesting historical marker that you’d like me to feature, let me know in the comments section below.

It’s Wednesday, so today I give you my weekly list of movies that will open in theatres this week as well as a list of movies that will be released this week on DVD.

I hope this will serve as a useful guide as to what’s going on this week if you happen to be near a movie theatre or if you’re looking for something to drop into your NetFlix queue or pick up at the local Redbox.

- To the Artic (Documentary, G): Directed by Greg MacGillivray and starring the voice of Meryl Streep.

If I could only watch one movie at the theatre this week, it would be “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” and if I had to pick just one DVD to rent this week, it would be “Lincoln.”

In the end, let me know if you get a chance to watch any of the new movies in theatres this week or if you’ve already seen any of the movies that have just been released on DVD. What did you think about them? Which would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

I was surprised to read on The Writer’s Almanac (writersalmanac.publicradio.org) on Friday that 66-year-old thriller writer, James Patterson, is the best-selling novelist in the world. He reportedly sells more books than Dan Brown, John Grisham and Stephen King combined, according to recent sales data.

With that said, I must be one of the few people left alive who has never read anything by James Patterson, but I plan to change that soon. By my count, Patterson has published 99 books, not counting those that have been published under more than one title. For example, three of his early books – “The Jericho Commandment,” “Virgin” and “Black Market” – were revised after their original publication and re-released as “See How They Run,” “Cradle & All” and “Black Friday,” respectively. What follows is an up-to-date list of all of Patterson’s books in order of their publication.

1. The Thomas Berryman Number (1976)
2. Season of the Machete (1977)
3. The Midnight Club (1989)
4. Along Came a Spider (1993)
5. Kiss the Girls (1995)

Monday, March 25, 2013

I scratched two movie-related items off my “life list” on Saturday when I finally got around to watching two classic horror films, 1922’s “Nosferatu” and 1931’s “Dracula.”

Like a lot of movie fans, I’ve known about these movies for a long time, but I’d just never taken the time to sit down and watch them in their entirety. I streamed both of them over NetFlix on Saturday and enjoyed watching both of these old-timey vampire movies.

“Nosferatu” is a silent German film loosely based on Bram Stoker’s novel, “Dracula.” Directed by F.W. Murnau, this movie starred Max Schreck, Gustav von Wangenheim, Greta Schroder, Alexander Granach and Georg H. Schnell. At 94 minutes in length, this is one of few early horror films that are now in the public domain in the U.S.

You’ll find this movie on a number of “best of” lists, including Fangoria Magazine’s list of “300 Best Horror Films.” Entertainment Weekly ranked it No. 80 on its list of “100 Greatest Movies of All Time,” and it was also included on Steven Jay Schneider’s list of “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.” It was also ranked No. 21 on Empire Magazine’s list of “100 Best Films of World Cinema.”

This movie is also the origin of the idea that sunlight kills vampires. In fact, this movie was the first time in film history that showed a vampire being killed by sunlight. Since the movie was an unauthorized adaptation of Stoker’s novel, they changed the vampire death scene in order to avoid being sued.

Another interesting thing about this old movie is that the original orchestral score that accompanied this movie has been lost to time. If you watch it on NetFlix, you’ll hear an accompaniment, but it’s not the original. It’s been pieced together from what little bit is known about the original musical score.

1931's “Dracula” came along just after the end of the silent film era and is also based on Stoker’s novel and a 1924 stage adaptation written by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. Directed by Tod Browning and Karl Freund, this movie starred Bela Lugosi, Helen Chandler, David Manners, Dwight Frye and Edward Van Sloan. At 85 minutes in length, this movie was a huge box office success in its day. This classic film was later selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry and in Fangoria Magazine’s list of “300 Best Horror Films.”

Both of these movies are considered classics of the horror genre, and if you consider yourself a horror fan, you really need to watch both of these movies. Both of them tell the same story in slightly different ways, and both of them are very creepy (and funny) in parts. I highly recommend them both, even to movie fans in general. You will not be disappointed.

In the end, how many of you out there have seen these movies? What did you think about them? Of the two, which is your personal favorite? Let us know in the comments section below.

Local weather reporter Betty Ellis reported .20 of an inch of rain in Evergreen on March 22 and .21 of an inch on March 23.

“Unusual tracks found at Loree: When Buddy Raines set off for Evergreen from his home in the Loree community last Thursday morning, the sharp-eyed 62-year-old spotted something unusual in a cornfield near his home.
“At first, he thought that someone had driven a motorcycle across the corn that he’d planted the previous Sunday, but upon closer inspection, he could tell that it was no motorcycle.
“’Whatever it was wasn’t so heavy that it mashed into the soft dirt or messed up the rows very much,’ Raines said. ‘Whatever it was, the track wasn’t there during the day on Wednesday. This was done sometime Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.’
“Raines wondered if the track may have been left behind by a large snake like the exotic anacondas and pythons that have begun to plague Florida in recent years.
“The track stretched all the way across the field and was 12 to 13 inches wide. The track was just deep enough to flatten the tops of the furrows in the field. There also appeared to be a line in the tracks that indicated that it may have been caused by an animal with a tail.
“Individuals who examined photos of the unusual track offered up a number of theories about what could be responsible. Animals mentioned included various snakes, alligators, snapping turtles, gopher tortoises, beavers, peacocks and otters.”

16 YEARS AGO
MARCH 27, 1997

“Harry Ellis of Evergreen was honored recently by WSFA-TV for his continuing contribution as a Storm Team Weather Watcher. Harry attended an appreciation dinner for the 31 Weather Watchers who call the WSFA Storm Center regularly, reporting weather data from their respective hometowns. WSFA’s Chief Weathercaster Rich Thomas commended him for ‘the part he plays in helping the Storm Team report accurate weather information from all around WSFA’s coverage area… especially during severe weather.’ Beginning in May, WSFA will recognize the Weather Watchers on the air for the work they do.”

“Crack in County Rd. remains a mystery: As the Conecuh County crack widens, the plot thickens over what is causing this unusual geological condition.
“A thick, slippery layer of clay is getting the blame for the condition that has been drawing attention to the Repton area.
“Emergency Management Agency coordinator Billy Mims said the apparent fault line appeared sometime between 5 and 6:30 a.m. March 18 and it has been spreading ever since. The crack in the ground is located on County Road 73, 4.8 miles east of Repton in the Springhill community.
“As of last week, it was 300 yards long and as much as 60 feet wide in some places with varying depths of five to 23 feet.”

31 YEARS AGO
MARCH 25, 1982

“Earl Windham reports no rain last week and says: ‘No rain this time. I think ole Bob had better do the rain dance.’”

“Winners of the Conecuh County Spelling Bee are: first place, Rita Grace, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Johnny Feiro Grace; second place, Marsha Kennedy, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ben Kennedy; and third place, Chris Wallace, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Billy Wallace. Rita will compete in the state contest in Birmingham in June.”

“The Evergreen Courant will begin in the near future a series entitled ‘Our Future Citizens’ which will feature pictures of Conecuh County children. The Courant needs your cooperation to make this coming feature successful.”

“Twenty-six senior citizens were injured and their church bus destroyed Monday when it flipped and landed in a 12-foot-deep median south of Evergreen, State Troopers said.
“The group from the First Baptist Church of Boaz was en route to Bellingrath Gardens south of Mobile about 2 p.m. when the driver lost control of the 1972 Chevrolet bus about 10 miles south of Evergreen on rain-slick Interstate 65, said Trooper Cpl. J.C. Fowler.
“All passengers of the bus were injured, including 62-year-old driver Crawford S. Perry, said Fowler, adding that no charges were filed. Six passengers were admitted to D.W. McMillan Memorial Hospital in Brewton, and five others were admitted to Evergreen Hospital. One woman was transferred from Evergreen to St. Margaret’s Hospital in Montgomery.”

46 YEARS AGO
MARCH 30, 1967

“Wolfe Ambulance Service will begin offering ambulance service to all of Conecuh County this Sat., April 1. Cope Funeral Home will end this service Friday. Frank Wolfe of Monroeville, owner of the new service, is already operating an ambulance service in Monroe County.”

“Warrant Officer One R.B. Griffin has started a 12-months tour of duty with the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He is the son of Mrs. Bertha Griffin of Rt. 1, Evergreen.”

“Service station operators were warned this week by Evergreen Police Chief John Andrews not to sell gasoline or other combustible fluids in glass containers. He pointed out that to do so is a violation of a city ordinance.
“Andrews said that each year about this time when lawn-mowing is resumed there are violations of the ordinance reported. He said that it is very dangerous for gasoline to be carried in glass containers and enforcement of the law is necessary for public safety.”

“Marine Private First Class James C. Salter Jr., grandson of Mrs. Emmie Tatum of Rt. 1, Evergreen, is in Da Nang, Vietnam serving as a member of ‘A’ Battery, First Battalion, 13th Marine Regiment.”

“Record Rainfall Here During Past Weekend: According to officials at the local Airways Communication and Weather reporting station at Evergreen Airport, the past weekend was the wettest since the opening of the station Nov. 19, 1949. Weather records beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday afternoon until 6 a.m. Monday morning show a total of 3.44 inches of rainfall for those 36 hours.
“The station located at Middleton Field, Evergreen, is manned 24 hours daily by one or more of the following personnel: Walter L. Chambers, Chief, William S. Andrews Jr., Wiley H. Sanders Jr., Sparkman Long, Jack L. Broome.”

“With the Eighth Army in Korea – Cpl. Alton E. Cook, Belleville St., Evergreen, Ala., is now serving on the island of Kojedo, 40 miles off the coast of southern Korea, with the 121st Transportation Truck Co.”

“After serving for the past 10 months in Japanese and Korean waters, the landing ship tank USS 772 has arrived in San Diego, Calif. Serving aboard her is William E. Henderson, seaman apprentice, USN of Evergreen, Ala.”

“George W. Estes, age 44, popular and well known teacher of Vocational Agriculture at Lyeffion High School, died at a Greenville hospital March 19, following an illness of many months. He was a devoted member of the Church of Christ and a Mason.”

“Fort Riley, Kansas – Second Lt. William E. Dantzler, son of Samuel A. Dantzler, McKenzie, Rt. 2, Ala., received his gold bars at commissioning exercises for Army Officer Candidate Class 42 at Fort Riley, March 22. Lt. Dantzler graduated from the Evergreen High School in 1948 and entered the Army in October of that year.”

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Today is Sunday, so that means that it’s time for my weekly breakdown of this week’s Publishers Weekly Best-Sellers Lists. According to those lists, there is one new book at the top of the four major best-sellers lists this week.

"Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg replaced "Life Code: The New Rules for Winning in the Real World" by Phil McGraw as the top book on the hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list.

"Alex Cross, Run" by James Patterson remained the No. 1 book on the hardcover fiction best-sellers list for the fourth week in a row.

"The Innocent" by David Baldacci remained the top book on the mass market paperback best-sellers list for the third straight week.

"Proof of Heaven" by Eben Alexander remained the No. 1 book on the trade paperbacks best-sellers list for the 16th week in a row.

There were three books on this week’s hardcover fiction best-sellers list that weren’t on that list lat week. They (and their places on the list) included "Breaking Point" by C.J. Box (7), "Bloodfire Quest" by Terry Brooks (10) and "A Memory of Light" by Jordan/Sanderson (15).

There were five books on this week’s hardcover nonfiction best-sellers list that weren’t on the list last week. They included "Lean In" by Sheryl Sandberg (1), "Until I Say Good-Bye" by Susan Spencer-Wendel (10), "The Hormone Cure" by Sara Gottfried (11), "Heaven is Real but So is Hell" by Vassula Ryden (12) and "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love" by Rob Bell (15).

There was one book on this week’s mass market paperbacks best-sellers list that wasn’t on the list last week - " The Wind Through the Keyhole" by Stephen King, which was No. 15 on the list.

There were three books on this week’s trade paperbacks best-sellers list that weren’t on the list last week. They included "Spring Fever" by Mary Kay Andrews (9), "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer (13) and "Wool" by Hugh Howey (15).

As a reminder, I’m posting these lists each Sunday because they, as a whole, represent a great, contemporary recommended reading list. These lists are initially released each week on Thursday, and if you’re interested in reading them then, visit Publishers Weekly’s Web site at www.publishersweekly.com. Below you’ll find all four of this week’s best-seller lists.

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Frisco City’s Grady Gaston is perhaps the toughest man to ever come out of Monroe County, Ala.

If you don’t think so, I invite you to read “The Crash of Little Eva: The Ultimate World War II Survivor Story” by Barry Ralph. Originally published in November 2004 by the University of Queensland Press in Austrailia, this book details Gaston’s epic struggle for survival after a military plane crash in the Australian wilderness during World War II. Gaston, who died in 1998, was a native of Frisco City, Ala. and was a mailman in the Frisco City area for about 40 years.

In his book, Ralph deftly details how Gaston was the radio operator aboard the “Little Eva,” a B-24 Liberator bomber that was based out of remote airbase in Queensland, Australia. On Dec. 2, 1942, while on their way back from their first mission, their plane was disabled during a severe thunderstorm. As the plane began to run out of fuel, Gaston and other members of the crew parachuted from the plane moments before it crashed in a remote area of the Australian wilderness. Up to that point, Gaston had never parachuted out of anything, much less a moving plane hundreds of feet off the ground, but miraculously he survived the jump. Others weren’t so lucky.

Once on the ground, Gaston found himself in a group of four, who began making their way west toward the coast. Over time, the men slowly began to starve to death and eventually only Gaston was left alive. An extensive search was launched for the plane and the crew, but Gaston wasn’t found until April 23, 1943 when an Aborigine found him walking on the beach. Barely alive, Gaston had survived 141 days in a wilderness that would have killed experienced bushmen and Aborigines in similar circumstances.

Gaston’s ability to survive was mostly due to the fact that he was willing to eat things that his companions would not. With no way to start a fire, he ate whatever he could catch with his bare hands, including raw snakes, frogs, fish and sand crabs. He also fought off wild dogs, drank impure water and lost 70 pounds. He would later describe his experience, which led to him being featured in “Ripley’s Believe It or Not!,” as “141 days of hell.”

In the few paragraphs above, I’ve just hit the high points of Gaston’s story, and there is a lot more to the tale than what I’ve mentioned above. The 70th anniversary of Gaston’s rescue is a month from today, and I’d encourage all Monroe Countians to take the time to learn about Gaston’s story. Copies of “The Crash of Little Eva” are available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. So far as I know it is the only book that’s been written that’s totally about the Little Eva crash and its aftermath.

In the end, how many of you have read “The Crash of Little Eva”? What did you think about it? How many of you remember Grady Gaston? Do you have any memories of Gaston that you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Book lovers in the reading audience will be interested to hear that this year’s slate of Bancroft Prize winners were announced yesterday (Thursday).

For those of you unfamiliar with the Bancroft Prize, it is given each year by Columbia University to recognize outstanding books on American history or diplomacy. First awarded in 1948, the Bancroft Prize is generally considered to be one of the most prestigious awards in American history writing.

According to Columbia University’s website, “winners are judged in terms of the scope, significance, depth of research and richness of interpretation they present in the areas of American History and Diplomacy.”

If you enjoy American history, you can bet that if a book has won the Bancroft Prize, it’s pretty good and definitely worth reading.

This year’s winners were:

- “Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History” by John Fabian Witt

- “The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail” by W. Jeffrey Bolster

As you might imagine, a number of outstanding American History books have received the Bancroft Prize over the years. What follows is a complete list of the all-time winners.

1964:
- “Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, 1932-1940” by William E. Leuchtenburg
- “The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison” by John L. Thomas
- “Power, Freedom and Diplomacy: The Foreign Policy of the United States of America” by Paul Seabury

1965:
- “Castlereagh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812-1823” by Bradford Perkins
- “Portrait of a General: Sir Henry Clinton in the War of Independence” by William B. Willcox
- “The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933-1938” by Dorothy Borg

1966:
- “The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence” by Richard B. Morris
- “Between Two Empires: The Ordeal of the Philippines, 1929-1946” by Theodore W. Friend III

1968:
- “A History of Negro Education in the South from 1619 to the Present” by Henry Allen Bullock
- “From Puritan to Yankee: Character and Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765” by Richard L. Bushman
- “The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution” by Bernard Bailyn

1970:
- “Charles Wilson Peale” by Charles Coleman Sellers
- “The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787” by Gordon S. Wood
- “Scottsboro: A Tragedy of the American South” by Dan T. Carter

1971:
- “The Image Empire: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Vol. III – From 1953” by Erik Barnouw
- “Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger” by David M. Kennedy
- “Andrew Carnegie” by Joseph Frazier Wall

1973:
- “Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam” by Frances FitzGerald
- “The United States and the Origins of the Cold War” by John Lewis Gaddis
- “Booker T. Washington” by Louis R. Harlan

1975:
- “Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery” and “Time On the Cross: Evidence and Methods – A Supplement” by Robert William Fogel
- “Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice” by Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke
- “Roll, Jordan, Roll” by Eugene Genovese

1976:
- “The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823” by David Rion Davis
- “Edith Wharton: A Biography” by R.W.B. Lewis

1977:
- “Class and Community: The Industrial Revolution in Lynn” by Alan Dawley
- “The Minutemen and Their World” by Robert A. Gross
- “Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807-1834” by Barry W. Higman

1979:
- “Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain and the War Against Japan, 1941-1945” by Christopher Thorne
- “Rockdale: The Growth of an American Village in the Early Industrial Revolution” by Anthony F.C. Wallace

1980:
- “Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945” by Robert Dallek
- “Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860” by Thomas Dublin
- “Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s” by Donald Worster

1981:
- “Walter Lipmann and the American Century” by Ronald Steel
- “Alice James: A Biography” by Jean Strouse

1982:
- “A People in Revolution: The American Revolution and Political Society in New York, 1760-1790” by Edward Countryman
- “Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865” by Mary P. Ryan

1983:
- “Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England” by John Putnam Demos
- “Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist” by Nick Salvatore

1984:
- “Booker T. Washington: The Wizard of Tuskegee, 1901-1915” by Louis R. Harlan
- “The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry” by Paul Starr

1985:
- “The Free Woman of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860” by Suzanne Lebsock
- “The Life and Times of Cotton Mather” by Kenneth Silverman

1986:
- “Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States” by Kenneth T. Jackson
- “Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present” by Jacqueline Jones

1990:
- “The Indians’ New World: Catawbas and Their Neighbors from European Contact Through the Era of Removal” by James H. Merrell
- “Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow” by Neil R. McMillen

1991:
- “Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939” by Lizabeth Cohen
- “A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812” by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

1992:
- “Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West” by William Cronon
- “The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson and the Americans” by Charles Royster

1994:
- “The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800” by Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick
- “Tumult and Silence at Second Creek: An Inquiry into a Civil War Slave Conspiracy” by Winthrop D. Jordan
- “The Biography of a Race, 1868-1919” by David Levering Lewis

1995:
- “The Refiner’s Fire: The Marking of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844” by John L. Brooke
- “Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi” by John Dittmer

1996:
- “William Cooper’s Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic” by Alan Taylor
- “Walt Whitman’s America: A Cultural Biography” by David S. Reynolds

1997:
- “Explicit and Authentic Acts: Amending the U.S. Constitution, 1776-1995” by David E. Kyvig
- “Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974” by James T. Patterson

1998:
- “Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt” by Christine Leigh Heyrman
- “The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations” by Walter LaFeber
- “The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit” by Thomas J. Sugrue

1999:
- “Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America” by Ira Berlin
- “Black Culture in Eighteenth-Century Chesapeake and Low Country” by Philip D. Morgan
- “The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity” by Jill Lepore

2000:
- “Into the American Woods: Negotiators on the American Frontier” by James H. Merrell
- “Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II” by John Dower
- “The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction” by Linda Gordon

2001:
- “Roaring Camp: The Social World of the California Gold Rush” by Susan Lee Johnson
- “The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst” by David Nasaw

2002:
- “Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory” by David W. Blight
- “In Pursuit of Equity: Women, Men and the Quest for Economic Citizenship in 20th Century America” by Alice Kessler-Harris

2003:
- “Captives and Cousins: Slavery, Kinship and Community in the Southwest Borderlands” by James F. Brooks
- “The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670-1717” by Alan Gallay

2004:
- “In the Presence of Mine Enemies: War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863” by Edward L. Ayers
- “A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration” by Steven Hahn
- “Jonathan Edwards: A Life” by George M. Marsden

2005:
- “Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s through the Civil War” by Melvin Patrick
- “From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality” by Michael J. Klarman
- “Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860” by Michael O’Brien

2006:
- “Dwelling Place: A Plantation Epic” by Erskine Clarke
- “The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times” by Odd Arne Westad
- “The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln” by Sean Wilentz

2007:
- “Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes in the South” by Jack Temple Kirby
- “William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism” by Robert D. Richardson

2010:
- “Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits” by Linda Gordon
- “Abigail Adams” by Woody Holton
- “White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880-1940” by Margaret D. Jacobs

2011:
- “Ourselves Unborn: A History of the Fetus in Modern America” by Sara Dubow
- “The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery” by Eric Foner
- “Freedom Bound: Law, Labor and Civic Identity in Colonizing English America” by Christopher Tomlins

2012:
- “Empires, Nations and Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860” by Anne F. Hyde
- “Age of Fracture” by Daniel T. Rodgers
- “Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement” by Tomiko Brown-Nagin

2013:
- “Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History” by John Fabian Witt
- “The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail” by W. Jeffrey Bolster

In the end, how many of these Bancroft Prize-winning books have you had a chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend? Let us know in the comments section below.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

If you read my column in this space last week, you read about one of the worst weather events in Conecuh County’s history – the Great Easter Flood of 1913. After last week’s paper came out, I discussed the 1913 flood with a number of local people, and more than a few said that the Flood of 1929 was another severe weather event that caused serious damage to Conecuh County.

Research into the Flood of 1929 showed that it was arguably worse than the 1913 flood. Records kept at the time by Evergreen weather reporter J.R. Kelley showed that 19.31 inches of rail fell on Evergreen between March 13 and March 15, 1929. On Wed., March 13, Kelley recorded 2.85 inches of rain in Evergreen, and 8.70 inches of rain was recorded on Thurs., March 14. On March 15, Kelley recorded 7.76 inches of rain. Newspapers of the time called it “Conecuh County’s greatest flood.”

“It was by far the greatest rainfall the county has had for such a short period during the last five years and probably for all the time,” Kelley said. “March rainfall to date has been 23.26 inches and brings the total for 1929 to 35.11.”

Raging floodwaters damaged a number of bridges in Conecuh County and completely washed away the Bull Slough Bridge over the Sepulga River near Paul. Also washed away was about 20 feet of Travis Bridge over the Sepulga River between Evergreen and McKenzie. In Castleberry, the approach to the south end of the Panther Creek Bridge washed away, rendering the route from Castleberry to Evergreen impassible.

Flooding also washed away portions of the L&N Railroad at Garland, in the Wilcox community and at Sparta. The flood also washed out about 200 feet of the L&N Railroad near Castleberry and washed away the trestle over Panther Creek. This forced two northbound passenger trains – the Crescent Limited from New Orleans to New York and the Pan American from New Orleans to Chicago – to stop in Evergreen for four days. Those trains contained passengers from all walks of life, including an airplane pilot and a honeymooning couple trying to get to Chicago.

While they spent Thursday morning through Sunday morning in Evergreen due to the weather, the local Red Cross chapter and local civic clubs, like the Lions Club and the American Legion, sprang into action to help the marooned passengers. Money was raised for some of them, and the passengers seemed to have been well fed while in Evergreen.

The Courant reported that all perishable foods aboard both trains were confiscated and served to the passengers, including a barrel of frog legs. However, they avoided 15 barrels of spoiled fish that were later carried north and dumped by railroad officials on the orders of county health officer, Dr. E.L. Kelly. Railroad agent C. Hawkins had the fish taken to a point near the Murder Creek trestle and burned, The Courant reported.

In the March 23 edition of The Montgomery Advertiser, the train passengers praised Evergreen’s residents for their hospitality. Conductor W.L. Hughes told The Advertiser that within minutes of the train arriving in Evergreen, a committee of the local Red Cross came to the train to see if anyone needed any help. The hotels and cafes in Evergreen also didn’t take advantage of the situation or increase their prices, the conductor noted.

While the train passengers faired reasonably well during the ordeal, railroad employee Will Howard did not. When the flood receded, Howard, a porter at the L&N depot in Evergreen, found the main portion of his house sitting on the tracks with the rest of it having floated off into the nearby woods.

If those passenger trains had continued north they would have likely have met with the same fate as northbound freight train No. 72, which overturned in a washout near Wilcox on March 14 around 5 a.m. That train was operated by engineer Bostwick Hamm, who may have been the luckiest victim of the flood in Conecuh County. When his train overturned, Hamm became pinned beneath the train engine and a coal car.

Rescuers “worked feverishly” to save him from drowning as the waters rose swiftly around him. Rescuers worried that the waters would either rise over his head or that they would cause the heavy engine to settle and come down on top of him. Before it was all over, he had to be held up and out of the water by ropes while rescuers cut him out of the wreckage with an acetylene torch. Dr. E.L. Stallworth of Evergreen, who had to make his way to the train wreck in a small boat, treated Hamm at the scene. Hamm was eventually freed and taken to Owassa, where it was determined that his only injury was a broken foot.

Hamm may have been freed sooner, but a five-man train crew on their way to rescue him got marooned between two washouts three miles north of Castleberry. They were forced to subsist for 36 hours on a loaf of bread and a small quantity of cheese.

Hamm’s rescue wasn’t the only dramatic tale of rescue to come out of Conecuh County during the flood. The Covington News reported that John Tollison, a young Conecuh County farmer, rescued a 71-year-old woman identified as “Mrs. Saunders” from her home in Conecuh County near the forks of the Sepulga and Conecuh rivers. The day before Tollison had gone to Saunders to tell her that the rivers would likely flood, and Saunders told him that he was wrong. She’d lived in the community her entire life and she “had never seen the rivers rise to an alarming extent.”

Tollison awoke the next morning “to see a raging flood of water.” He left his home around 6 a.m. in a “fragile rowboat and after a nerve wrecking, harrowing trip of six miles through treacherous floodwaters,” he reached her home. Saunders opened the door for Tollison, and he rowed his boat into her house, placed her in the boat and carried her to safety. Tollison picked up another neighbor on his way back home, which he reached about dark.

Tollison was raised along the river and said he was afraid that he would never reach Saunders. At times, he had to hold on to telephone wires to keep from sinking. “He had been in close places before, or thought they were close, but that his ride of six miles in a rowboat to effect the rescue of Mrs. Saunders almost finished him,” he said.

Others weren’t so lucky. Two Pollard residents drowned when their boat overturned in a swift current, and two men died at Geneva. Two others died in Flomaton and two more died at River Falls. The death toll stood at 10 in Elba at the end of March.

The rainfall was so heavy in Southwest Alabama that Army scout pilots out of Maxwell Field in Montgomery reported that the Alabama River five miles north of Miller’s Ferry was 10 miles wide. Flooding of the Alabama River was also reported in Clarke, Dallas, Lowndes, Monroe and Wilcox counties. Those heavy rains left both Castleberry and Brewton preparing for “their worst floods in history,” The Courant reported.

In Castleberry, Panther and Murder creeks rose four feet higher than ever before and destroyed five homes. The home of J.P. Matthews was moved a quarter of a mile from its foundations by floodwaters, and his gasoline filling station was also washed away. The home of Will Matthews was also destroyed by floodwaters, The Courant reported.

Businesses in Castleberry faired even worse, including Skinner Hardware Co., which was destroyed by fire during the flood when water ignited two barrels of unslacked lime inside the store. That fire raged on even as a heavy rain fell and four feet of water stood inside the store. All stock above the water line was destroyed as well as the store’s books and records.

A warehouse in Castleberry owned by The Peoples Bank of Evergreen that contained between 200 and 300 tons of merchandise, including several thousand dollars in fertilizer, was also damaged. At the height of the flood, there was 26 inches of water inside Carter’s Drug Store, and fertilizer and crate material in a warehouse of R.E. Lee’s Store was also damaged.

The water was so swift in Castleberry that when A.S.J. Nettles and R.T. Holland overturned in a canoe in front of Nettles Store, the canoe broke in half a moment later when it struck a telephone pole a few feet away. A large portion of Nettles’s stock was badly damaged by the flood.

Later, physicians with the state board of health and county health board administered the typhoid vaccine to 385 Castleberry residents as a precaution. They also buried the bodies of 40 animals and birds that drowned in the flood.

Brewton was also struck hard by the flood and afterwards, Evergreen was the only place officials in Brewton could reach by telephone. Evergreen’s National Guard Unit – Troop C. of the 55th Machine Gun Squadron - were among the first to answer Brewton’s calls for help. The unit was eventually sent to Brewton and Flomaton for 10 days.

Under the command of Capt. W.D. Lewis, they also aided the residents of East Brewton, Alco and Pollard. They were tasked with feeding 3,334 people, conducting patrols to prevent looting and to reestablish communications with the outside world. One of the first things the soldiers did was to confiscate all boats to “guard against any possible pilfering.” They also supervised 300 workers who reopened the road between Flomaton and Brewton. The troops remained in Brewton until March 25.

Also in Brewton, a group of traveling performers called the Milt Tolbert Show had their big tent, staging, general admission seats, poles and other equipment destroyed in the flood. The big tent was torn to pieces and the staging and tent poles were never found. Mrs. Ernest Ve Vea, a “prominent member of the troupe, the blond woman who played the character parts,” died during the ordeal from kidney failure. Her husband was one of the show’s comedians, and she was later transported to Jacksonville, Fla. for burial.

Castleberry and Brewton were among a number of low-lying places to suffer in the storm. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Brewton is only 84 feet above sea level, and Castleberry is only 174 feet above sea level as opposed to Evergreen and Repton, which are 258 and 379 feet above sea level, respectively.

The weather also prevented mail from reaching Evergreen for five days and only ended when a state highway department truck brought a small batch of mail to Evergreen from Georgiana. The next day, citizens raised money to send Morton Jones and Loftin Cardwell, two post office clerks, in a truck to Georgiana. They brought back 25 sacks of mail, which was a little more than half of the mail for Evergreen that had accumulated at Georgiana during the flood.

In the end, if you know any additional details about the Flood of 1929’s impact on Conecuh County, please let me know. You can contact The Courant at 251-578-1492 or by e-mail at courantsports@earthlink.net.